


Our Bloody Hands

by enigmabishop



Category: The Dragon Prince
Genre: Backstory, Family Drama, Foreshadowing, Mage Fam, Prequel, Tragic Romance, dark magic philosophy, new perspective, stuff to fill the empty void before season four - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24609310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmabishop/pseuds/enigmabishop
Summary: A brief imagination of Viren and Lissa's marriage breakdown inspired by the new lore in the season one novelization.
Relationships: VirenxLissa
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	1. The Setting Sun

The sun was setting. Lissa felt the warm radiant glow on her skin as she watched it slowly disappearing under the horizon. She always loved this time of day, where the brightness of the day would fade to the cool and calm serenity of night. But that was a different time, a different life.

She shivered as a cold breeze flew by her. Not wanting to get a cold, she hurried back inside and closed the doors to her balcony. She walked into a more colorful room, there both sleeping soundly were the shapes of two small children tucked under their blankets. Lissa walked quietly towards their beds and gave them each a gentle kiss.

Feeling a bit tired herself, Lissa headed for her own bedroom. As she opened the door, to no surprise, her husband was nowhere to be seen. She left a short sigh. It was a rare chance to ever see him ever stop working. Whether it would be by candlelight or by the light of the moon, the hours after midnight were his golden hours. She almost admired him for his diligence, if only it didn’t cost him physically. Many times she had tried not to grimace at the sight of a chemical burn on his hand or a scar on his face. He had always brushed it off saying that they were mere effects that came with studying the occult. Surely, a few defects here and there were worth exploring the mystical unknown thought, Lissa. She herself had devoted her life to understanding such an intriguing study. Some called it blasphemy, some called it dark magic. Yet, for years she and her husband saw it only as a necessary path to creative solutions. Now, she was not so sure.

Feeling unable to rest, she left her family’s chambers and descended to her husband’s study on the lower levels of the castle. Soon a large door frame stood in front of her. She turned on the doorknob and entered a dark chamber filled with hundreds of books. Lissa turned to a large ornate painting on the wall, a bright picture of a young shepherd boy holding a young lamb in his arms staring at her. She had always admired the painting, but she shook off those feelings for another day, unlocked the secret contraption, and descended down a grey spiral of stairs. As she reached the final step, a bright flashing light blinded her for a second and she heard the sharp shattering of glass. “Viren, darling?”, she cried out and raced to the source of the sound.

“I’m all right, dear,” he replied as he got up from the ground.

“What happened”, asked Lissa.

“Oh, a spark came off during my experiments and I knocked over a spare jar as I fell.”  
There indeed, on the grey floor, were the remains of an old glass container usually kept for storing the parts of small creatures. Next to it was a small pool of blood.

“Darling, your hands look horrid. Here sit down, and I’ll bandage them for you.”

Viren did as she spoke and pulled two chairs for both of them.

“My oh my”, Lissa whispered.  
Her husband’s palms and fingers were the color of dark red. Even the dim light of the chamber glistened on a few small shards still embedded in his flesh.

“Perhaps you should wait till morning before you continue,” Lisa advised as she removed the splinters of glass while he winced in pain.  
“You’ll risk infection if you start working again.”

“In fact, what were you working on?” she inquired.

“Oh just another reveal incantation”, Viren replied.

“I was hoping that by adding the eagle feathers their effect would be amplified”, he continued.  
“Unfortunately I didn’t expect it to react so extremely.”

“Eagle feathers, I certainly didn’t think of that for a reveal spell,” Lissa said.  
“You're always coming up with brilliant ideas darling,” she smiled. Viren’s expression lightened but winced again as she removed the final shard and bandaged his hands tightly.  
“Thank you, dear,” he said softly.

After mutual agreement that no mage could work with crippled hands, they both departed the hidden chamber and returned to their bedroom.  
When she laid her head on her pillow, she felt her husband’s weight beside her.  
She shifted her body to face him and stared at his grey eyes for a moment. Feeling at peace, she suddenly remembered a cold truth.

“I’m sorry dear. Soren’s fever hasn’t subsided. When I checked up on him an hour ago his head was still brimming with heat.”

“I know darling,” he whispered regretfully. “Tomorrow, I’ll take him back to the castle’s physicians. But for now, let’s just rest.”  
He gave her a gentle kiss and they soon dozed off into a deep slumber. But no matter how hard she tried, Lissa could not get one image out of her mind. Her husband’s red bloody hands.


	2. Playing God

“Soren was dead,” whispered Lissa to herself. 

Gone, passed in the night he did. It was still a few hours before daybreak. Lissa had awoken shortly after midnight and despite feeling it was just mere panic, she headed off to Soren’s room anyway. Hoping for relief when she would see that he was alright, warm as a fireplace but still alright. But his cold still body said otherwise. The shock was unbearable, she tried to stay calm but the emotion overwhelmed her and her legs felt like sticks beneath her as her head hit the ground. As her vision faded to black, she thought of something strangely calming. 

“Perhaps this was a merciful end,” thought Lissa.

“Better to pass painlessly while asleep than to suffer months of agony hoping for a cure, yet only to die in pain.”

“And perhaps I will be dead as well. And maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Maybe even in death, I will be reunited with Soren and even though it would only be the two of us, I could still look after him.”

But when she opened her eyes, it was not the sight of the afterlife that greeted her but the morning rays coming from the balcony. Lissa jolted up realizing that she was no longer in Soren’s room but her own. She tried to playback what had happened in the night, wondering if it was all just a dream.

“No,” she thought. “It was all too real. Her son’s corpse, the impact as her head crashed onto the floor.”

“Make no mistake”, she told herself, “Soren is gone. He’s left this world.”

Viren must have heard her collapse and would have made the same shocking discovery before carrying her back into their bedroom.“Where was he now,” she wondered. “Burying their son in the castle’s graveyards? Telling Claudia the painful news?”

Before she knew it, Lissa raced out of the chamber into the communal living room and looked for her family.  
“Good morning Mommy,'' said Claudia cheerfully as she looked up from her book.

“Why do you look so pale? Did something happen?” she asked.

“Honey, where are your brother and father?” said Lissa.

“Oh Soren is outside playing with his wooden swords again, and Daddy’s been in his study all morning.”

Lissa ran out to the courtyard. Sure enough, there was Soren, lively as ever before his fever, pretending to be in a sword fight with a dragon, swinging his sword left and right and laughing.  
She could not believe it.

“Soren!”, she cried out as she sprinted towards him, embracing her son with all her might. Strange, there was no sign of fever nor any kind of symptom at all.

“Woah mom”, he wheezed.  
Lissa laughed almost, and slowly let him go.

“Oh Soren, I’m just glad you’re alright.”  
“Don’t worry mom, Dad said that my fever went away in the night and that the worst had passed. Oh, and he also said he wanted me to tell you to find him in his office when you woke up.”

Lissa knew that Soren’s words could not be further from the truth. But she needed to find Viren, only he knew what happened after she fainted. Could some gracious miracle have possibly occurred?

She walked to her husband’s study. As she passed in the hallways, she heard murmurs from the guards and servants that one of the castle’s doctors had not arrived for his early shift despite being present the previous day. But she paid no heed, her mind only focusing on the door to Viren’s study. When she entered, there was nothing there but the same shelves of books and the painting of the young shepherd boy. Without hesitation, she approached the picture, and once again a dark hallway appeared before her. She descended down the stairs in a cold sweat, and what lay before her, was a horrible sight.  
Her beloved husband this time no longer scarred by burns or wounds but his skin dark as coal and his eyes the color of soot. And what lay at his feet was the body of a doctor, never again to wake from his sleep.

“It had to be done dear”, sighed Viren as he walked towards her and put his hand on her head and guided her to the warm embrace of his chest. He smelled like the dark scent of a morgue.

“When I found you on the ground I knew you had discovered a terrible truth.  
But this physician himself was dying and he had lived a life longer than both of ours combined. Yet all he cared about was finding the cure to his own sickness. That is why he downplayed the severity of Soren’s fever. That is why he left our son to die in his sleep. And now look at him now, in his own sleep. Ironic don’t you think?”

“Your reveal spell,” muttered Lissa, “ was so much more than that was it?”  
Viren’s expression tensed up.

“Listen to me, my love,” as he looked into her eyes.

“I suspected the doctor would be futile, so I feared for the worst and prepared an incantation. I didn’t tell you because I could not bear to let you suffer such a burden. Call what I did necromancy if you want but it saved Soren.”

But Lissa could not focus on his words, her husband’s dark eyes and skin were haunting. She felt like she was in a stranger’s embrace.  
“You cheated death. How long do you think you can play God before you realize you’re dabbling in what is forbidden?”

“Dear this appearance is only temporary, I’ll find a way to cover things up. Everything will be fine from now on, I promise.”

Lissa pulled away from his embrace.  
“Forgive me, but I don’t see that happening at all.”


	3. What Never Was

That night, Lissa was restless. All she could think was that her husband was a murderer. And she by association was his accomplice. How long could Viren pretend that everything was fine? Tomorrow there would be a grand festival in celebration of Harrow’s birthday. Surely as the King’s most trusted advisor, he would not just walk into the festivities looking like a hellish ghost. How long could she herself keep up appearances? When Claudia and Soren asked if their father would come to kiss them goodnight, she had quickly replied that he was busy in his study reading up ancient manuscripts that he would someday teach them. Then she shuddered at her own words. What if her own children would one day take life as they saw fit like their father? The question burned in her mind like fire as she tried desperately to sleep. _Sleep._ What a mysterious word. She turned to it for relief from the day’s tumultuous events, yet it was sleep itself her husband had forced onto the doctor. 

She got up and stared at her reflection through a mirror in the room. She looked at her own hair and pearl skin. How different was she from her husband? Although her face was not as crippled by the practice of dark magic, had she not also tainted her hands with the death of innocent creatures? And even though a spider or a wolf was in no comparison to a man, was not all life precious? If all life were to be seen as cheap collateral how safe was she really, or her children from dark magic? From Viren. She loved him dearly, but it was no denying it now, that she was utterly afraid of him. 

Suddenly, the doors to the room flung open. 

“Lissa dear, there is no need for this tension between us. Look at me.”

Truly enough, her husband’s handsome face was restored. His eyes the color of soft grey and his cheeks rosy. But out under his sleeve, fell a colorless butterfly. 

“How charming you think your youthful guise can cleanse you of your crime”, spat Lissa.

“Dear?”, said Viren in surprise.

“Let me tell you something no ancient tome or manuscript will say”, she taunted.

“No magic can wash away the blood of a man from your hands.”

“In fact, I don’t even know how to look at you anymore really. I never feared my husband. But I do now. ” 

The weeks that followed were easily the worst weeks for both of them. During the day, for the sake of their children, they would pretend that truly nothing significant had transpired between them. But by night, when the children were sent to bed, the facade would snap, and endless arguments would follow. Truly, nighttime felt like a nightmare, and the sun setting became an omen of the strife that was to come. At last, they realized that the illusion of a happy family was too unbearable to continue. Lissa wanted to take her children with her to Del Bar, away from Viren’s dark nature, but he was still their father who despite his flaws, loved them. The decision should ultimately be theirs. Yet, she could not stand to separate Soren and Claudia. Perhaps they would be different from him. 

“Never again will I practice dark magic,” vowed Lissa. 

And as she mounted her horse alone one Sunday afternoon, she felt a gaze from the towers of Katolis’s grand castle. There was her husband, his face neither content or sad, rather unsure of what to feel, almost like the shepherd boy in the painting. She gave him a likewise expression. She knew in her heart that she still loved him, even though it didn’t make sense anymore, and it was a love that felt alien. Then she shook the reins of her horse and departed Katolis for the last time. 


End file.
